Not Quite A Super-Champion But Isaac Hirsch Still Made Jeopardy Proud

 

 

In all my years of watching Jeopardy I don’t normally pick up the kinds of patterns that are involved in  super-champions runs. That said, there’s a very interesting symmetry to Isaac Hirsch’s run on Jeopardy which came to an end just this evening.

Two weeks ago Isaac Hirsch had just completed a runaway victory over Dana Keane and Kelly Proulx, going into Final Jeopardy with $19,800. (There has been some controversy over the circumstances of that runaway but as they would have had no effect on the actual results of the game, I won’t repeat them.) The Final Jeopardy category was HISTORIC WOMEN and it had one of the hardest clues in recent weeks – and I do include the endless postseason in that regard.

“In the 16^th century, she changed the ‘EW’ in her family name to a ‘U’ to help her new French in-laws spell it more easily. No one knew what it was. Isaac wrote down: “What is uhhh” which could have spoken for all of us. As Ken told us it referred to Mary Queen of Scotts. Her name was originally Mary Stewart, but she changed her name to Mary Stuart because they don’t have a ‘W’ in France. (Stuart is the name of a ruling house that ruled first over Scotland and eventually all of Great Britain.) It only cost Isaac $615 and he won his first game.

Then after nine consecutive wins he ended up facing off against Jay Fisher and Erike Stromerson tonight. From the start there were signs this game would be last. He was trailing Jay by a considerable margin at the first commercial break, got the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round wrong and was in third at the end of the round. In Double Jeopardy he began a hot streak and he had gotten up to $9600 when he found the first Daily Double in BRITISH AUTHORS. He wagered $5000:

“Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he was named for the explorer Amundsen.”  This was a very tough Daily Double and the only reason I knew it was because I’d seen a variation on it years ago. The clue refers to Roald Dahl. Isaac dropped into second place and although he got the next Daily Double correct, it would not be a good game. While he did get 25 correct responses he also gave six incorrect responses and as a result at the end of Double Jeopardy was in second for the first time during his run, albeit with $15,300 to Jay’s $16,200.

The Final Jeopardy category was 1960s PEOPLE. “He said that California prison psych tests he took were ones he had designed, so he made himself look docile and unlikely to escape; then he did.” Like in his first game, this was also a triple stumper though in the case of both Jay and Isaac, they did manage to formulate a response: “Who is Charles Manson?”  In fact the clue referred to Dr. Timothy Leary, who was first a psychologist and then an inmate.

It came down to wagering. Isaac bet $14,000 which dropped him to $1300. Jay lost $14,401 which put him at $1799, which was enough to make him the winner. Ironically, the totals for finishing second and third on Jeopardy are $3000 and $2000, respectively so Isaac actually got more in losing that his vanquisher did in defeating him.

But Isaac still completed an impressive Jeopardy run winning nine games and $215,390. And even though his total is one short of Jeopardy immorality, it’s worth noting that Isaac’s record is more than formidable.

Isaac managed four runaway victories amongst his nine wins. By contrast Adriana Harmeyer managed to only runaway with five games in her fifteen victories. Indeed Adriana had won only $204,700 after nine wins.

While Isaac can’t compare to some of the greatest of all time, a comparison to several of the second tier champions at this point in their run is instructive. Here’s a showing of several Jeopardy champions who won eleven or more games after nine wins (I’ve included the same ones I compared Adriana Harmeyer to out of fairness)

David Madden: $217,100

Julia Collins: $198,170

Matt Jackson: $249,411

Seth Wilson: $209,801

Jonathan Fisher: $215,900

Ryan Long: $173,301

Ray Lalonde: $255,100

Isaac Hirsch: $215,390

That’s as impressive in its own way as Adriana’s ranking. He was also running significantly ahead of two previous  9 game winners, Dan Pawson and Buzzy Cohen both of whom went on to win the Tournament of Champions in 2009 and 2017, respectively and basically even with Jason Keller, who won nine games in 2011 and $213,900. On the flip side, he won less than Ben Chan who won nine games and $252,600 in that span and Hannah Wilson, who won $229,801 in eight wins.

Even in what has been an immensely truncated regular season, Isaac has become the eighth player to qualify for the Tournament of Champions in Season 40 and the third to win more than seven games. He also has a fairly impressive persona and a history considering that his father Steve Hirsch appeared on Jeopardy all the way back in Season 2. Isaac playfully remembered playing Weird Al’s I Lost On Jeopardy in the aftermath of his father’s defeat but admitted in his first appearance that if he himself lost, it would be karma paying him back. Instead he did his father proud. (To be clear Isaac appreciated his father’s knowledge. Back in 2017, he appeared on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and his father was his +1.)

Nor was this Isaac’s only link to Jeopardy. Back in January of 2023, he appeared on The Chase as part of a team and shared in a $140,000 prize. The chaser he defeated? None other than Buzzy Cohen.

There are less than two weeks remaining before Season 40 of Jeopardy comes to conclusion next Friday. But once again the show reminds us that while post-seasons and super-tournaments are nice, it is great champions that make Jeopardy hum. Isaac is the third one we’ve had in what is already looking like an impressive lineup for the next Tournament of         Champions. I look forward to his return to the Alex Trebek stage whenever that occurs.